Elizabeth Berkley Reflects On “Showgirls”

In 1995, Elizabeth Berkley was a young and fairly unknown actress who seemingly scored the role of a lifetime – that of the lead star in “Basic Instinct” and “Total Recall” director Paul Verhoeven’s high-profile “Showgirls” film.

The erotic drama of course was a critical flop and box-office bomb, a very public one at the time with the actress being targeted with some harsh criticism alongside the project itself.

Yet the movie has not only survived, it has thrived. On home video, the film became one of MGM’s top twenty all-time bestsellers and earned more than enough revenue to take the film well into profit. Critically it has also been revisited and become something of a cult classic.

This week, during a special screening of the movie in Los Angeles to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, Elizabeth Berkley made an appearance at the cinema and spoke to the crowd in a fun and sweet speech about the emotional journey the film’s release took her through:

“I had the most extraordinary experience making the film. When a dream is happening, it’s unlike anything you can ever imagine. Which is why, when the movie came out, it was more painful than anything you can imagine. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that moment, because why do that? We don’t live in the past.

I’m just bringing it up for a point, to tell you that 1995 was such a different time, where taking risks like that were not embraced. They were laughed at. They were shamed publicly. To be a young girl in the center of that was something that was quite difficult. But I found my own resiliency and my power and my confidence – not only through what I had to find out, but because of you guys.”